Journalisten Andrew Gilligan, kjent som mannen som feilsiterte våpeneksperten David Kelly, slik at han tok sitt liv, mener det er grunn til å glede seg over finanskrisen fordi den redder oss fra politistaten. Det blir ikke penger igjen til overvåking og store databaser, til leting etter nåler i en høystakk.

Gilligan skriver i en lederartikkel:

It may, in the end, be the excesses of the bankers that save us from the excesses of the police state. Buying RBS and HBOS won’t leave much over for email databases, ID cards and the other horrors on the Home Office wish-list. And now Gordon has a real economic crisis to be Churchillian about, he won’t need a security blanket to make him look tough.

Men disse tankene er ikke «ville», de deles av brede lag i Storbritannia, skriver Carol Gould, amerikaner som bor i UK.

What is worrying about the Gilligan view is that it is held so widely across Britain. Living here every day of the year as I do, it is evident from wildly approving television and radio audiences and from furious politicians — including many Conservatives — that common sense has gone topsy-turvy.

Det er et merkelig resonnement Gilligan gjør seg.

Now, journalist Andrew Gilligan, a household name in Britain but perhaps not as well known in other climes, has taken it upon himself to write a rant in the Evening Standard of October 16 condemning the «police state» and making assertions that some observers could say border on treason. Gilligan, who shot to fame in 2003 when he «outed» the «sexed-up» government dossier on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, a national crisis that ended with the death of world biological weapons expert Dr. David Kelly and the resignation of BBC Director-General Greg Dyke, is actually asserting that in 2008 the financial crash will at last liberate us from spending money on preventing terror attacks.

I have now thrice reread Gilligan’s editorial, on which the paper provides the heading, «Banking Excess May Save Us from the Police State,» and must conclude that he reflects the level of foolhardy liberal insanity that has been increasingly pervading the British social discourse in the past decade. What is so alarming is that with the exception of Home Secretary Smith every person in a public forum is self-flagellating over the reduction in personal freedoms that the battle against Islamic radicalism has engendered in Her Majesty’s Kingdom.

Has Britain Lost Its Marbles on Fighting Terror?

Banking excess may save us from the police state